Tensions loom as Bush meets Saudi crown prince

Associated Press WriterCRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met for two hours Thursday with President Bush at his central Texas ranch, looking to ease growing tensions between their two nations that loomed over a summit originally meant to advance the Mideast peace process.

But a Saudi spokesman said the crown prince was not softening his demand to Bush that the United States pressure Israel to halt military action against the Palestinians.

"We believe the administration could have been stronger on (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, made it clearer to him that negotiations cannot be done under the barrel of a gun," Nail Al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy, told reporters here as the two men met.

Al-Jubeir said he expected the crown prince to deliver a frank message to Bush: "The message is, Sharon has been acting up, and the U.S. government needs to rein him in. We cannot maintain the peace process with this stuff going on."

Images of Israeli-inflicted devastation in Palestinian refugee camps "make it more difficult for friends of the U.S. to stand up with the U.S.," Al-Jubeir said.

As Bush and Abdullah met, some oil prices surged on fears that Abdullah would use the meeting to threaten to choke off Saudi oil to the United States.

Al-Jubeir denied that. "We've always been a reliable source of oil, and we'll continue to be," he said.

White House and Saudi officials said the two leaders spent much of their session alone, one-on-one, then set out in Bush's pickup truck for a ranch tour and lunch afterward. White House and Saudi officials said little on the substance of the session immediately after it ended.

When the de facto Saudi leader arrived, Bush escorted Abdullah, who wore white-and-brown robes, into his home, introducing him to a U.S. delegation that included Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, chief of staff Andrew Card and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It was Abdullah who gave momentum earlier this year to an initiative meant to quell Mideast violence by offering peace and full recognition to Israel in exchange for the territory Jordan and Syria lost in the 1967 war.

But the crown prince was delivering a warning to Bush that America's backing of Israel was damaging prospects for peace.

Arab leaders said the discussions could determine the Arabs nations' next moves. The meeting is "important, revealing of American stances, and will clarify a lot of issues and will be the basis for the Arabs' future steps," Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, said Thursday in Cairo.

Abdullah's plan also includes the creation of a Palestinian state, for which Bush has voiced support. Also under review is an international conference on Mideast peacemaking. Bush so far has been noncommittal.

In a fresh reminder of the tension, more than 100 Saudi intellectuals said over the weekend that the American role in the Israeli military operation against the Palestinians was "shameful" and that the "Israeli massacres do not differ in shape or form from what the Nazis did."

Throwing Bush's words back at him, they said: "We consider the United States and the current American administration the nurturer of international terrorism with distinction and it, along with Israel, form the axis of terrorism and evil in the world."

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said the intellectuals tapped into a prevailing view in his country. "It reflects the frustration that exists there," he said Wednesday on "The CBS Evening News."

The foreign minister ridiculed Bush's description of Sharon as "a man of peace."

"Ariel Sharon a man of peace?" the prince said. "I don't even think Ariel Sharon believes that."

Responding to Bush's demand that Arab countries condemn Palestinian suicide bombings, al-Faisal in an interview with the Arab daily al-Hayat said: "Nobody favors killing the innocent from here or there." But the Saudi foreign minister added: "How could anybody condemn a person who lost hope in life because of humiliations and circumstances imposed on him by an occupier? There is a difference between a terrorist attack like what took place on Sept. 11, and a suicide operation by a male or female youth (for) who all means of decent life have been blocked."

In London, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain defended a poem he wrote praising Palestinian suicide bombers, and said he would change it only if Jewish leaders in Britain began referring to some past and present Israeli leaders, including Sharon, as terrorists also.

White House aides said Bush hoped to address not only the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and the next phase of the war on terrorism, including what to do about Iraq, but broader economic and trade issues as well.

The meeting comes at a troubled time in the 70-year friendship between the United States and the oil-rich desert kingdom.

Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 alleged Sept. 11 hijackers have Saudi roots. The kingdom's initial indifference to the U.S.-led war on terrorism and its financial support for Islamic militants also have soured relations.

U.S. forces used Saudi territory as a base for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But Saudi Arabia denied use of its territory for attacks against Afghanistan -- and Abdullah reportedly told Vice President Dick Cheney that the United States could not use Saudi soil for prospective future action against Iraq.